I absolutely love seeing a woman I only sort of know

walking a dog just a few streets down from my new apartment. I realize now that she’s my neighbor and we both drive 12 or 20 minutes depending on traffic to the same yoga studio each day but when I see her here, walking before 9am in her pajamas, presumedly, I may as well be meeting another person. I may as well be meeting a new neighbor, halting morning traffic at the four-way stop to inquire about her personal life. I enjoy this interaction because it requires no rehearsal. She holds a plastic water bottle in the same hand as the end of the leash, having taken only 2 or 3 sips of water because, I imagine, she just wishes it was coffee but recently on Instagram she read something convincing about how her first cup of caffeine shouldn’t be until 90 minutes after waking up and today she’s really trying.

All the rules we follow, huh? All the rules that apply even as she walks her neighbor’s dog down the street near my house.

I was never meant to see you like this. Before you rehearsed what you’d say. Before you were ready to be seen for the day.

I am enjoying this distinction between private and personal lives. I am enjoying how we all have them and how all of our walls are different heights depending on the day. I don’t always enjoy how getting to know someone requires a rather generous allowance of time and space. It’s uncomfortable for me, this getting to know someone. It properly requires building a bridge between my private and my personal life. It cannot just happen but it can feel good in the way it is simultaneously

discomfort and also

expansion

like being really full on cake

xx

Until You Know Better

enter the zoom room 4 minutes early

read a line from your old journal just to remind yourself that none of this was ever meant to be easy, that no one promised you it would be, and that whatever feels hard now is not the only hard thing you’ve ever known and will surely not be the hardest you ever see

Great Artists Steal

old BROCKHAMPTION ???